Ariella Mostkoff

This past week, I created scenarios representing different touch-points and domains where a searching “system” could exist. These explorations led me to think about “searching” not only as a means to find new information, but also as a means to manage the information that a user interacts with everyday. One of the goals of my thesis project is to change information behavior, both of the user- increasing literacy by reducing overload and passive consumption- and of the “system”- changing the way in which information is presented to better represent intent and meaning. Through these changes on both sides of the spectrum, the user and system can meet “each other half way,” in the sense that, the user does not have to completely conform to current standards and the system does not have to completely adopt new information architecture. By translating information with interactive conditions, meaning is conveyed and extracted on both ends.
Continue Reading →

In his book, Exposing the Magic of Design, Jon Kolko references Johnson-Laird’s theory of mental models to explain how we understand the world and cope with complexity. As described by Johnson-Laird, a mental model is an internal representation that corresponds to the external world, and represents a form of embodied knowledge. As such, we construct mental models in order to understand the world, conceive possibilities, and manipulate abstract content. A mental model consists of both elements that correspond to perceptual entities, i.e. physical models, and elements that correspond to abstract notions, i.e. conceptual models. Physical and conceptual models represent systemic levels that build in complexity.
Continue Reading →

In an effort to ground the concept of mental models in the field of design, I created a taxonomy of artifacts- mobile applications, touchpoints, experiences, and designed spaces- representing a variety of domains and addressing various types of information-need that support behaviors associated with the process of searching/finding. The major groupings of artifacts reflect both physical and conceptual mental models, and are organized by color. Continue Reading →

As computers are more and more becoming embodied as embedded aspects in our experience of our everyday environment, embodied interaction rethinks the borders between digital artifacts. A shift towards embodied interaction is motivated by the recognition that to incorporate even further human skills requires moving computation ’out of the box’ and ‘into our environments’. Continue Reading →